Convicted of terrorism,
a Kurdish teenager is serving a seven-year, nine-month prison
sentence in Turkey’s Prison E in Diyarbakir.

On October 9, 15-year-old Berivan Sayaca left her parents’ home in
Batman in southeast Turkey to pay a visit to her aunt. She never came
home.

According to news reports, Turkish authorities charged that Sayaca
stopped at a demonstration organized by the Kurdistan Worker’s Party,
known by the acronym PKK, and threw stones at police. Her advocates
deny that she attended the protest and say she simply passed through
the crowd. They say the rally was coordinated not by the PKK but
by the recently banned Kurdish political party Peace and Democracy, or
BDP.

In densely populated and economically suffering southeast Turkey,
pro-Kurdish protests are commonplace. On some occasions, youths have
thrown stones and gasoline bombs at police, who respond with tear
gas and water cannons, the BBC reported.

Amnesty International says that an anti-terror law passed by the
current Turkish government in 2006 states that minors can be convicted
of terrorism and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Authorities argue that the Kurdish protests are coordinated by the
PKK because the law presumes all Kurdish protests as PKK protests,
Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch and the BBC report. Anyone at the protests is
considered a member of the PKK, authorities say, and the courts
therefore rule that protesters are terrorists.

Since the law’s enactment, more than 700 minors have been convicted
as terrorists. Today, more than 2,600 sit in Turkish prisons.

From her cell, Sayaca wrote to a local advocacy group, the Human
Rights Assn., to request legal assistance.

"I’m drowning and imprisoned though I have committed no great
crime," she wrote. "It is more than I can stand. I feel so much pain. I
do not deserve to be here. You cannot imagine how terrible a place the
prison is. Words are not enough to explain it. I'm so scared to
spend the rest of my childhood in here. I want to be with my family, in
my house, go to school, play with my friends. I want to be free instead
of being in prison."

She decorated her plea with doodles of trees, hearts and roses.

Apparently as a punishment, prison authorities moved her to solitary
confinement.

Sayaca’s family fears that the girl’s mental health has
deteriorated. Her mother, Mariam, travels every week to visit her
daughter for the 30 minutes the authorities will allow. Sayaca is
not scheduled to be released until she is 23.

Last fall, Prime Minister Erdogan launched an initiative aimed at
alleviating tension between the Turkish government and the Kurdish
minority. It granted amnesty to several PKK members, and there was talk
of loosening linguistic and educational restrictions. However,
authorities arrested PKK members who returned to their community after
they made public statements confirming their commitment to the Kurdish
cause.

Over the past month, the recent "opening" has slammed shut,
with violence escalating to early 1990s levels, Reuters reported.
The military has stepped up operations in Hakkari and Diyarbakir.

Reports surfaced last week in the Independent
Communication Agency, a Turkish news source supported by the
European Union, that Turkish soldiers allegedly abused the dead bodies
of nine PKK members. And Turkey has escalated its operations
in northern Iraq as well, a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty said.